Bud Shank

Movies "Notting Hill," a romantic comedy, features Hugh Grant as a bookstore owner whose life is turned upside down when the world's biggest movie star (Julia Roberts--who else?) enters his store. It opens in general release Friday. Theater La Jolla Playhouse presents the West Coast premiere of "Oo-Bla-Dee," Regina Taylor's new play about members of an all-female African American jazz band who must redefine their professional and personal roles as World War II ends and the soldiers return home.

The fourth season of the Henry Mancini Institute's annual free concert series kicked off with an all-star bash Saturday night at Royce Hall. Always one of the highlights of the summer music season, the opening event showcased the series' most attractive qualities: an impressive lineup of guest performers and the spirited performances of a gifted, 80-piece orchestra of young musicians. The guests were trumpeter-composer Terence Blanchard and saxophonist David Sanchez.

"Le Jazz Cool -- Le Jazz Hot," Thursday night's climax to "Cote a Cote," the Getty Center's three-day conference on the intersection of jazz with post-World War II arts and culture, had some intriguing possibilities. The first was the presence of veteran French pianist Rene Urtreger, making his first Los Angeles appearance. Active since the early '50s, the veteran of gigs with Miles Davis, Lester Young and others, he is a masterfully diverse performer.

Gerry Mulligan and Gerald Wilson--similar in name, if not in style--were the standouts of the Friday and Saturday performances at KLON's Jazz West Coast celebration. Mulligan, one of the two or three biggest names in West Coast jazz in the '50s, dominated Friday's events. His participation began the afternoon with a lighthearted, one-man panel discussion at the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza Hotel, the festival's primary venue.

Jazz thrived in Southern California beginning in 1945, when clubs on Central Avenue and in Hollywood were presenting such greats as Charlie Parker, Art Tatum and Nat King Cole. Business stayed strong until the late '50s, when the number of happening clubs began to dwindle to a handful and the West Coast jazz scene began to dry up. "It was great," recalls Bill Holman, who was active during the '50s as a composer, arranger, tenor saxophonist and bandleader.

March 18, 1994 | ZAN STEWART, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES; Zan Stewart writes regularly about jazz for The Times

As guitarist Kenny Burrell stood on the stage of the Jazz Bakery recently, playing a bubbling version of Blue Mitchell's "Funji Mama," drum mer Sherman Ferguson sat behind him, firm yet not rigid, smiling as he provided an array of pulsating drum beats that made the number dance.

These days, we have become so inured to the Latin-tinged sound of the classical guitar that we are more likely to associate its music with car commercials than with the concert hall. But when Laurindo Almeida first came to United States from Brazil in 1947, the guitar was considered a simple instrument capable of producing only simple chords. Almeida was largely responsible for introducing Americans to the popular classical guitar repertoire.

Bill Perkins, a versatile saxophonist best known as a popular soloist in the Stan Kenton and Woody Herman big bands in the 1950s, has died. He was 79. A leading figure on the West Coast jazz scene for more than four decades, Perkins died Saturday of cancer at his home in Sherman Oaks, according to his family. Born in San Francisco, Perkins spent the first several years of his life in Chile, where his father was working as a mining engineer.

Ask alto saxophonist/producer/composer Pat Britt why he plays jazz and his face lights up. "When everything's going right with a good rhythm section, there's nothing like it," he said. "You can kind of do what you want within a structure. It's like freedom." Britt has played with more than a few bands in his 29-year career as a jazz musician.

Mimi Clar Melnick, an author and former Los Angeles Times writer who was the host of jazz salons in her Encino home for more than 17 years, has died. She was 77. Melnick died June 14, a few months after having open-heart surgery, her family announced this week. Her presentations, which she titled the Double M Jazz Salon, featured a stellar array of jazz artists, including, among numerous others, Gerald Wiggins, Billy Childs, Kenny Burrell, Bobby Bradford, Art Davis, Oscar Brashear and Arthur Blythe.